I think that refers only to the competition, Baal and whoever else was being worshiped.

More properly, refering to graven images of all the ba'alim and ashtarot, aka the old gods and goddesses of Sumer (which were later adopted by the Babylonians).

(To make a long story short, it's now thought by actual archaeologists that Judaism started out as a monotheistic fork of Mesopotamian polytheistic faiths (being probably the first monotheistic faith to actually catch on, versus Akhenaten's failed attempt). There are still some traces of the old polytheism (particularly in Genesis and the creation myths), and at the time that the Ten Commandments were encoded as the basis of halachic law, there were still a lot of issues with folks reverting to the polytheistic worship of the old gods.

Hell, even the Bible itself mentions this in relation to Moses and Aaron--with Aaron having set up a golden calf, a ritual item of Ba'al Hadad (the old Sumerian god of storms) which was specifically designed as an idol to the (monotheistic) god of Israel. There are at least two instances recorded after this when royalty or the people in general went back into frank polytheistic worship (with the God of Israel equated to either Ba'al Hadad or El) and a number of other instances where the early Israeli people had gone into partial polytheism reversion (with the God of Israel being paired with Ishtar or Astara, and the female companions of God/the gods being referred to as the ashtarot--"Astara" may well have been a functional title of "Lady" in this case, much as "ba'al" is actually a title of "Lord").

Yes, this is where knowing a bit about the predecessors of Judaism gets very interesting :D

In my experience, the more religious a person is, the less likely they want to hear about the ACTUAL origin of their religious customs. Christians, in particular, (likely due t ...

You hang out with the wrong Christians. This Roman Catholic gets a huge chuckle when he's at an Easter vigil mass and he watches the Priest re-create the Beltane rite of kindling the sacred fire, or sees a stained glass window dedicated to "St." Brigid. It shakes my faith not even the tiniest bit to know that our forms and rituals of worship often are somebody else's with the serial numbers filed off. Humans like rituals and pageantry, what the fark ya gonna do?

I'm less offended by the misspellings and the All-Seeing Eye as I am by the American Eagle carved there. Considering how the Jews reacted when the Romans tried to nail their Imperial Eagle over the doors of the Temple in Jerusalem, it's pretty ironic.

Actually, what would be ironic is if the monument got defaced not by some radical secularist but by a proper God-fearing Christian who objected to the worldly national symbols placed on top of God's Law.

AssAsInAssassin:Bonzo_1116: I sometimes wonder how much of the monotheism that the Hebrews picked up was related to the dualistic ideas of Zoroastrianism coming out of Central Asia. Judaism has a weird mix of Indo-European ideas of an overall father-god figure grafted onto a local Semitic storm-god chassis.

Yep. "Jupiter" comes from the Indo-European "dyeu-peter", or "god-father." Another name for Jupiter was "Jove." Except it was "Iove" (That's a capital "eye," not a lower-case "el.") which means it was pronounced "YO-WEH." "Zeus" comes from the same source.

http://www.fark.com/comments/7438098/80746572#c80746572

and allow for a few centuries of linguistic drift and regional accents and it's not hard to hear Yahweh (Yah-wheh not Ya'll-way) in Allah (Or El-Al, the root word of Yahweh). It wouldn't shock me if the origins of Islam didn't have its roots in the remnants of the Samaritan culture which seems to vanish just after biblical times

Hey, wait, you mean there's nothing in the ten commandments about no gay sex? Some of my fellow state residents want a word with this here god fellow. Don't you know that christians/republicans always look the the bible for guidance on this? I had shrimp today and wore my two diffrent types of colth to celibrate. Yes, I knant speel, i went to shcooll hear.

Son of Thunder:The Larch: Son of Thunder: Yes, but that's because I make the effort to read up on what actual scholars say about religious texts, instead of just shooting my mouth off.

OK, smart guy. You are undoubtedly aware that the meaning of this text has been interpreted in many different ways by many different groups and many different times. Why don't you tell us why everyone else in the whole history has been doing it wrong, and how you're doing it right.

Really? Everyone else in all of history has interpreted that commandment as an absolute prohibition of all visual art? Citation needed.

Oh. You're one of those people. Well, I'm sorry I wasted my time, then.

Yep. "Jupiter" comes from the Indo-European "dyeu-peter", or "god-father." Another name for Jupiter was "Jove." Except it was "Iove" (That's a capital "eye," not a lower-case "el.") which means it was pronounced "YO-WEH." "Zeus" comes from the same source.

Which is actually fairly impressive, considering that the Indo-European language family has no known relation to the Afro-Asiatic languages (of which the Semitic languages are a broad language family, much as the Romance or Germanic languages are part of sub-families of Indo-European)...save for some as-yet-unproven theories of relating some of the larger primary language families that still tend to be considered a little fringey.

(That said, I don't discount it could have happened. Somehow Semitic peoples got the one pre-Abrahamic faith (for which we have good records) from the people of Ur--and Sumerian is a language isolate which has no known relatives (and--at least if some interpretations of the fact there are sometimes as many as four or five separate glyphs in Sumerian for the same syllable are any clue--there's even a chance ancient Sumerian may have been a tonal or partially tonal language, like Vietnamese or Thai or quite a lot of language families in Africa). One theory is that when the Akkadian peoples (who spoke proto-Semitic) moved into the Middle East that they essentially "Sumericised" (taking on religion and culture, as well as apparently a form of cuneiform script) whilst causing a language shift from Sumerian to Akkadian.)

Or it could just be a loan word.

The Latin alphabet came from Etruscan--another language isolate--by way of Greek, which was adapted from the alphabet of the Phoenicians--a Semitic people. English, as I'm sure you know, has words from Arabic, Hebrew, Basque, American Indian languages, and pretty much every culture on Earth. Maybe the ancients were similarly promiscuous with their vocabularies.

Well there WERE, but if you read the Old Testament literally God went all Michael Corleone on them and consoldiated the Family business

Baal: [To Jesus] Tell Yahweh it was only business. I always liked him.Jesus: He understands that.Holy Spirit: [Removing Baal's gun] Excuse me, Bally.Baal: Can you get me off the hook, Jesus? For old times' sake?Jesus: [Shakes his head] Can't do it, Bally.

Magorn:AssAsInAssassin: Bonzo_1116: I sometimes wonder how much of the monotheism that the Hebrews picked up was related to the dualistic ideas of Zoroastrianism coming out of Central Asia. Judaism has a weird mix of Indo-European ideas of an overall father-god figure grafted onto a local Semitic storm-god chassis.

Yep. "Jupiter" comes from the Indo-European "dyeu-peter", or "god-father." Another name for Jupiter was "Jove." Except it was "Iove" (That's a capital "eye," not a lower-case "el.") which means it was pronounced "YO-WEH." "Zeus" comes from the same source.

...

and allow for a few centuries of linguistic drift and regional accents and it's not hard to hear Yahweh (Yah-wheh not Ya'll-way) in Allah (Or El-Al, the root word of Yahweh). It wouldn't shock me if the origins of Islam didn't have its roots in the remnants of the Samaritan culture which seems to vanish just after biblical times

Pretty much any Biblical name that has "el" or "al" in it comes from the same Semitic root.

ELOHIM: a name of God in the Bible, c.1600, from Hebrew, plural (of majesty?) of Eloh "God," a word of unknown etymology, perhaps an augmentation of El "God," also of unknown origin. Generally taken as singular, the use of this word instead of Yahveh is taken by biblical scholars as an important clue to authorship in the Old Testament, hence Elohist.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Elohim&allowed_in_frame=0

But "Jove" is an Indo-European word:

JOVE: Roman god of the bright sky, late 14c., from L. Iovis, from PIE *dyeu- "to shine," with derivatives referring to the sky, heavens, a god (see diurnal, and cf. Zeus). In classical Latin, the compound Iuppiter replaced Old L. Iovis as the god's name.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=jove&se a rchmode=none

Well there WERE, but if you read the Old Testament literally God went all Michael Corleone on them and consoldiated the Family business

Baal: [To Jesus] Tell Yahweh it was only business. I always liked him.Jesus: He understands that.Holy Spirit: [Removing Baal's gun] Excuse me, Bally.Baal: Can you get me off the hook, Jesus? For old times' sake?Jesus: [Shakes his head] Can't do it, Bally.

Not to be too picky or anything, but did you ever notice how these monument builders always edit the ten commandments to take out the part that says the seventh day is the Sabbath? Really, they're cutting out the part that would expose them for substituting Sunday for the seventh day. Ex 20:8-11

steve0701:Not to be too picky or anything, but did you ever notice how these monument builders always edit the ten commandments to take out the part that says the seventh day is the Sabbath? Really, they're cutting out the part that would expose them for substituting Sunday for the seventh day. Ex 20:8-11

Well, not to mention that they aren't even using the same Ten Commandments that the Bible described as the Ten Commandments.(Because those have too many obviously Jewey things in them)

I. Thou shalt worship no other god.

II. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

III. The feast of unleavened bread thou shalt keep.

IV. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.

V. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the first fruits of wheat harvest,and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

VI. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God.

VII. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.

VIII. Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

IX. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.

X. Thou shalt not seethe a kid [ie, a young goat] in his mother's milk.

Son of Thunder:The Larch: Son of Thunder: Yes, but that's because I make the effort to read up on what actual scholars say about religious texts, instead of just shooting my mouth off.

OK, smart guy. You are undoubtedly aware that the meaning of this text has been interpreted in many different ways by many different groups and many different times. Why don't you tell us why everyone else in the whole history has been doing it wrong, and how you're doing it right.

Really? Everyone else in all of history has interpreted that commandment as an absolute prohibition of all visual art? Citation needed.

Hardcore Jews and Muslims interpret it as a ban on *representational* art. So a picture or a portrait of a person is BAD BAD BAD, but calligraphy or pretty patterns are A-OK. Back in the day Turkish and Persian minature portraiture was consudered incredibly scandalous:

OMG you can see his face BLASPHEMER

but this is all good:

I do believe the "art" of photography was a point of some controversy back in the day as it is capturing the handiwork of God Himself. So knuckledraggers still don't like it, thinking that a picture of a man can steal his soul, and only God is allowed to do that.

I use to wonder if there really was that absolute prohibition of all visual art until I read further on that "a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." Apparently it's OK to have silver relief images with gold details. Just don't worship them.

TheCharmerUnderMe:Somacandra: AdolfOliverPanties: Isn't there something in the Ten Commandments about graven images?\

Yup, that's the monument--with misspellings and all.

I'm sorry, but is that the All-seeing Eye in the pyramid above the eagle? What the hell is THAT doing on there?

The American flag and a nice shiny eagle are there. Clearly, this is a sabotage attempt by the lamestream media and those jackbooted Obama thugs to reinforce steryotypes oppressing the poor good ol' Christians by implanting the 'Christianity Is America!!!11!!eleventy!' symbolism in the minds of the people involved in working on this.

PsiChick:TheCharmerUnderMe: Somacandra: AdolfOliverPanties: Isn't there something in the Ten Commandments about graven images?\

Yup, that's the monument--with misspellings and all.

I'm sorry, but is that the All-seeing Eye in the pyramid above the eagle? What the hell is THAT doing on there?

The American flag and a nice shiny eagle are there. Clearly, this is a sabotage attempt by the lamestream media and those jackbooted Obama thugs to reinforce steryotypes oppressing the poor good ol' Christians by implanting the 'Christianity Is America!!!11!!eleventy!' symbolism in the minds of the people involved in working on this.

Magorn:AssAsInAssassin: Bonzo_1116: I sometimes wonder how much of the monotheism that the Hebrews picked up was related to the dualistic ideas of Zoroastrianism coming out of Central Asia. Judaism has a weird mix of Indo-European ideas of an overall father-god figure grafted onto a local Semitic storm-god chassis.

Yep. "Jupiter" comes from the Indo-European "dyeu-peter", or "god-father." Another name for Jupiter was "Jove." Except it was "Iove" (That's a capital "eye," not a lower-case "el.") which means it was pronounced "YO-WEH." "Zeus" comes from the same source.

http://www.fark.com/comments/7438098/80746572#c80746572

and allow for a few centuries of linguistic drift and regional accents and it's not hard to hear Yahweh (Yah-wheh not Ya'll-way) in Allah (Or El-Al, the root word of Yahweh). It wouldn't shock me if the origins of Islam didn't have its roots in the remnants of the Samaritan culture which seems to vanish just after biblical times

The Samaritans never quite disappeared (and in fact still exist, and are the last remnants of the FIRST fork of the Abrahamic faiths--basically they disapproved of that whole Second Temple business, concluded Judaism had jumped the shark, and have continued their own traditions since--and were pretty much seen as EVIL SPLITTERS for it). :D That said, wouldn't be shocked if there'd been some exposure to Samaritanism by the founders of Islam.

As for the whole "Allah"/"El"/"Elyon" thing--Arabic IS in the same linguistic family as Hebrew and Aramaic (the latter of which would have been actually spoken from the time of Christ even up to the modern day (by Assyrians, who use Aramaic both as a liturgical language (in the form of Syriac) and as an endangered everyday tongue). Aramaic is in fact essentially the "daughter language" of Biblical Hebrew (much as modern English is a descendant of Middle English), and the original writing of the Talmud was in Aramaic (and Aramaic would still be in common use in the Jewish and Christian communities at the time).

Aramaic (and Hebrew) are considered Central Semitic languages, as is Arabic (especially Literary Arabic, which is actually a fairly archaic version of the language much as Syriac pretty much preserves "Middle Aramaic")--the degree of relatedness between the Central Semitic languages are about as much as (say) the Romance languages and Arabic and Aramaic DID do a fair amount of cross-fertilisation of each other linguistically (probably the languages would be about as separate as, say, Catalonian and Castilian Spanish, or possibly Spanish and Portugese; even Biblical Hebrew was close enough to Arabic that many terms (and curse words, of note) that did not exist or were never recorded in Biblical Hebrew or Aramaic were direct "Hebraisations" from modern Levantine Arabic when Modern Hebrew was resurrected as a living language).

I'm just reading whats written (slightly paraphrased):1) Thou shalt have no other gods2) Thou shalt not make graven images3) Thou shalt not take the name of god in vain4) Remember the Sabbeth (sp)5) Honor thy father and mother6) Thou shalt not kill7) Thou shalt not commit adultery8) Thou shalt not steal9) Thou shalt not bear false witness10) Thou shalt not covet neighbor's house11) Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife

I'm just reading whats written (slightly paraphrased):1) Thou shalt have no other gods2) Thou shalt not make graven images3) Thou shalt not take the name of god in vain4) Remember the Sabbeth (sp)5) Honor thy father and mother6) Thou shalt not kill7) Thou shalt not commit adultery8) Thou shalt not steal9) Thou shalt not bear false witness10) Thou shalt not covet neighbor's house11) Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife

I run on the Catholic version:Here are the Catholic Ten Commandments:

I am the LORD your God. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.Honor your father and your mother.You shall not kill.You shall not commit adultery.You shall not steal.You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.

I'm just reading whats written (slightly paraphrased):1) Thou shalt have no other gods2) Thou shalt not make graven images3) Thou shalt not take the name of god in vain4) Remember the Sabbeth (sp)5) Honor thy father and mother6) Thou shalt not kill7) Thou shalt not commit adultery8) Thou shalt not steal9) Thou shalt not bear false witness10) Thou shalt not covet neighbor's house11) Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife

The Neighbor's House and the Neighbor's Wife are traditionally grouped into one commandment...as they are just "things" your neighbor owns. It's really a prohibition against greed/envy/theft. Not so much sexing up your neighbor's wife--it's more about taking your neighbor's stuff in general.

I'm just reading whats written (slightly paraphrased):1) Thou shalt have no other gods2) Thou shalt not make graven images3) Thou shalt not take the name of god in vain4) Remember the Sabbeth (sp)5) Honor thy father and mother6) Thou shalt not kill7) Thou shalt not commit adultery8) Thou shalt not steal9) Thou shalt not bear false witness10) Thou shalt not covet neighbor's house11) Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife

I run on the Catholic version:Here are the Catholic Ten Commandments:

I am the LORD your God. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.Honor your father and your mother.You shall not kill.You shall not commit adultery.You shall not steal.You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.

I'm just reading whats written (slightly paraphrased):1) Thou shalt have no other gods2) Thou shalt not make graven images3) Thou shalt not take the name of god in vain4) Remember the Sabbeth (sp)5) Honor thy father and mother6) Thou shalt not kill7) Thou shalt not commit adultery8) Thou shalt not steal9) Thou shalt not bear false witness10) Thou shalt not covet neighbor's house11) Thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife

oo I'd forgetton the Catholics had actually nixed out the graven images thing....It's a weird prohibition, when you get down to it.

I'm sorry, but is that the All-seeing Eye in the pyramid above the eagle? What the hell is THAT doing on there?

The American flag and a nice shiny eagle are there. Clearly, this is a sabotage attempt by the lamestream media and those jackbooted Obama thugs to reinforce steryotypes oppressing the poor good ol' Christians by implanting the 'Christianity Is America!!!11!!eleventy!' symbolism in the minds of the people involved in working on this.

Please just stop.

Thank you.

...That was sarcasm.

/I need a font for that.//But really, that stuff is only on there because, well, of the entire point of this--that these guys believe America is a Christian Nation(tm). Which is ridiculous, but oh, well.

Wow, almost an exact copy of the one set up in Texas capitol's courthouse in 1961, eventually creating the Van Orden v. Perry decision. Also it was supported by Cecil B. DeMille, director of the 1956 Ten Commandments movie.

But hey... they copied almost the entire grotesque thing, and yet STILL misspelled things?? And wouldn't this violate copyright rules? You probably couldn't get them to sign off on the rights because it'd be hard to find who holds the rights to the original artwork- then again, that makes it less likely someone's gonna pop out of the woodwork and sue you.